Recent years have seen an increase in digital systems that provide dynamic web content to client devices across computer networks. Indeed, it is now common for websites hosted at remote servers to include personalized and adaptive content tailored to individual users of client devices based on user interests, characteristics, or behavior. Delivering dynamic web content from a remote server to client devices based on characteristics of a viewer can result in delivery of more efficient, relevant web content; nevertheless, various problems and drawbacks exist with conventional web content delivery systems.
For example, conventional web content delivery systems routinely cause flicker when loading and rendering dynamic web content as part of providing a webpage display. In particular, conventional web content delivery systems render webpages with certain elements or portions that abruptly change (i.e., flicker) as the webpage loads. This flicker generally appears as conventional web content delivery systems render dynamic content in place of default content within the website. As a result, conventional web content delivery systems often render webpages in a jolting and disruptive manner, particularly where a large number of dynamic elements are modified while loading the webpage.
Improper delivery of content due to flicker is not only jarring, but can result in erroneous impressions and/or selections. For example, conventional web content delivery systems can expose users to conflicting or inaccurate information (e.g., provide default content that is then replaced with more accurate or conflicting targeted content on a webpage). Moreover, conventional web content delivery systems can cause users to errantly select improper links of a webpage as default content is replaced by dynamic content. Flicker caused by conventional web content delivery systems often leads viewers to abandon a webpage in favor of other digital destinations.
Some conventional systems attempt to reduce or eliminate flicker by masking or hiding a webpage display until a webpage finishes loading. For example, many conventional systems hide an entire webpage (by providing a blank screen for display) and then reveal the webpage when all the web content has been prepared for display. Hiding a webpage display, however, results in unnecessary delay in web content delivery, which leads to user dissatisfaction. Thus, in seeking to resolve problems caused by flicker, these conventional systems lead to the same result: webpage abandonment.
The problems associated with conventional systems are only exacerbated by the time required by conventional processes to load dynamic content on a web page. Indeed, conventional systems generally process web documents utilizing a brute force method that performs actions sequentially based on how the actions are encoded in a web document. Thus, conventional systems often inefficiently perform actions in a manner that slows the time required to render the webpage. This exacerbates the problems described above, prolonging flicker and/or unnecessary time periods displaying blank content.
These and other problems exist with regard to providing dynamic web content.